My guess is the camera focused on the wall, prior to the boy running in front of the indicated focus point. But there was insufficient time for refocus before the shot was taken.

If it's back focus, it looks like a pretty extreme case.

Thanks for all your input

With my D90 always used AF continuous mode at 4.5 fps for sports. Gunning it I knew I was going to get a few shots in focus. But in this situation was sitting 1 foot away from basket. The boy was running toward me. I thought that at that distance would have no problem as the subject should be large enough to acquire focus and was only about 8 feet away. When I shot an air show had no problems using single point as i had a large subject matter. Guess its a learning experience with the D800.

It is much easier to acquire focus at a distance than at close range. At close range, slight movements to or from the plane of focus will bring something out of focus, as the depth of field is smaller when focusing on something at a closer range (this in particular is exacerbated by the fact that you are using a full frame camera body).

Don't understand why viewnx showed the focus spot that i used, yet the camera used a different point. It would appear that the camera knew that i was panning and switched to predictive/dynamic mode.

It showed which focus point had been used to acquire focus. It does NOT show where focus was acquired. This is a more advanced SLR than your previous D90, which means it requires more manual effort on your part to switch it to the right settings, and know what settings to use or not to use for a given situation. Its potential is greater, but it is more complex.